When I heard about the tragic loss of Levin J Marvel in 1955, in water close to my home, I was immediately intrigued. The story was sketchy: an incompetent captain taking a boatload of passengers into the teeth of a hurricane in a sailing ship built in the 1800’s. The boat capsized in Herring Bay, near North Beach, Maryland where the people onshore mobilized an heroic rescue effort. Still, 14 people, parents, kids, couples, drown that day. What happened? The pieces just didn’t seem to fit as neatly as the newspaper reports of the day made it seem.
I decided it was a story that has not been told that should be recorded, in memory of those who were lost, and for the sake of those who survived. I have made the acquaintance of remarkable men who lived through the event and its aftermath.
On this site, I will share some of my research as I put it together. So, join the journey!
Kathy Bergren Smith
ABOUT KATHY
I have been a maritime reporter and photographer for nearly 20 years. My work took me to report on the NTSB and Coast Guard inquiry into the sinking of the replica ship Bounty during Hurricane Sandy. It was a tragedy that bears some echoes of the Levin J Marvel. There was a captain who, even as his young crew members’ parents were frantically calling their children to ask if they were safe, persuaded them that he could get them safely to port before the storm. There was a vessel that was not really up to transiting the rough Atlantic waters off Cape Hatteras. There was a dramatic rescue and tragic death of the captain and an innocent passenger. Like the Marvel, Coast Guard led an inquiry that attempted to answer questions that really can’t be answered in the warm, dry conference room.
Reflecting on what may have happened on boats inevitably leads to looking at the people onboard. That is the story I would like to tell.
Levin J Marvel 